A very British coup – how public health took control of UK vaping advocacy
Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 14:54 Despite the UK's relatively liberal approach to e-cigarettes I have noted for years how vaping has slowly been adopted and even 'owned' by public health as a weapon in the war on smoking.
Nothing could make the point better than the current list of confirmed speakers for the 9th E-Cigarette Summit in London on 7-8 December.
(Chair) Prof Ann McNeill - Professor of Tobacco Addiction, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London
(Panel Chair) Prof Thomas J. Glynn – Adjunct Lecturer, Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine
(Panel Chair) Martin Dockrell – Tobacco Control Programme Lead – Office of Health Improvement & Disparities (OHID)
Opening Keynote: Prof Robert Beaglehole, Emeritus Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand & Chair ASH – Action for Smokefree 2025, NZ
Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce - Senior Research Fellow and Editor, Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Paul Lincoln, OBE – Independent Public Health Consultant and Chair - Tobacco: preventing uptake, promoting quitting and treating tobacco dependence, (NICE) National Institute of Clinical and Health Excellence
Prof Alan Boobis, OBE - Emeritus Professor of Toxicology & Chair - UK Committee on Toxicity, Imperial College London
Craig Copland - E-Cigarette Unit Manager - Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines, MHRA, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
Cliff Douglas, JD - Director, Tobacco Research Network, Adjunct Professor, Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health
Prof Marcus Munafò - Professor of Biological Psychology and MRC Investigator, School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol
Clive Bates - Director, Counterfactual
Prof David Levy - Professor of Oncology, Lombardl Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University
Deborah Arnott - Chief Executive, Action on Smoking & Health UK (ASH UK)
Prof Robin Mermelstein - Professor of Psychology and IHRP Director, University of Illinois, Chicago
Prof Robert West - Professor of Health Psychology & Director of Tobacco Studies
Dr Karl E. Lund - Senior Researcher, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Prof Martin Jarvis - Emeritus Professor, Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London
Prof Caitlin Notley - Chair of Addiction Sciences, University of East Anglia
Dr Sharon Cox - Senior Research Fellow, University College London
Prof Peter Hajek - Professor of Clinical Psychology, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London
Asst Prof Daniel Kotz - Assistant Professor CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University
Dr Debbie Robson, RMN - Senior Lecturer in Tobacco Harm Reduction, National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London
Prof Lion Shahab - Professor in Health Psychology, Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London
Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, MD, MPH - External Research Associate, University of Patras, Department of Public and Community Health, University of West Attica, Greece
Dr Michael Pesko - Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University
Andrea Crossfield, MBE - Independent Public Health Consultant and Population Health Policy Specialist, Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership
Kate Pike - Co-ordinator, Trading Standards North West and Member of the Department of Health and Social Care National Tobacco Focus Group
Hazel Cheeseman – Deputy Chief Executive and Policy Director, Action on Smoking & Health UK (ASH UK)
Marcus Saxton – Chairman, Independent British Vaping Trade Association (IBVTA)
Closing Keynote: Prof Linda Bauld, OBE - Bruce and John Usher Chair in Public Health in the Usher Institute, College of Medicine, University of Edinburgh
I have highlighted (in italics) the opening and closing keynote speakers – both of whom are active tobacco control experts – but most of the rest of the list speaks for itself, I think, although a definitive conclusion will have to wait for the final list and the event itself.
It certainly speaks volumes that the most consumer-friendly speaker on the list is arguably Clive Bates, former director of ASH and one of the architects of the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
In fact, while ASH is providing two speakers, consumer groups are noticeable by their absence.
A few years ago it wasn't unknown for one or two consumers (vapers, never current smokers) to be invited to join a panel but on the 2021 list I can't see a single one. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
In particular, why hasn't the impressive Mark Oates of We Vape – who recently organised a pro-vaping rally in Parliament Square – been invited to speak?
Travel restrictions may still apply but other conferences (the recent GTNF for example) have found ways to include virtual speakers in panel discussions so why can't the organisers invite the likes of Greg Conley from the American Vaping Association?
(Greg would never pass up such an opportunity, I'm sure!)
As for Forest, well, I gave up waiting for an invitation to speak at a vaping conference – not just the E-Cigarette Summit – years ago. The views of confirmed smokers, and why many more haven't switched to e-cigarettes, seems to be of little interest to organisers even when we have the research to explain why that might be.
Consumers are no doubt welcome to attend the E-Cigarette Summit as delegates but only to watch or contribute from the floor.
It's all a far cry from the first event in 2013 (which I wrote about very positively here). Consumers were largely restricted to the audience then too but they were there in numbers and they made their presence and voices heard.
They were even allowed to vape inside the conference room. I would be surprised if that was still the case but perhaps someone could tell me.
One of the most notable things about that first Summit was the attitude of Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH.
Deborah was initially quite guarded about e-cigarettes. I got the impression she thought they were a Trojan horse that Big Tobacco might use to its advantage.
Over the next few years she noticeably softened her stance on e-cigarettes (if not Big Tobacco) and cleverly manoeuvred ASH so that it not only acquired a leading role in the vaping debate but is arguably in control of it, in Britain at least.
In fact, with her former deputy Martin Dockrell in charge of the tobacco control programme at the new Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (and previously Public Health England), I would suggest that the immediate future of vaping regulation in the UK is very much in their hands.
Anyway, my point is this.
It's easy to be complacent about the e-cigarette ‘revolution’ in the UK but the people leading the conversation will never be advocates of vaping as a recreational habit that consumers might enjoy for decades.
In my opinion they are driven by a determination to eradicate smoking and, far from being a recreational product in its own right, e-cigarettes are seen as nothing more than a quit smoking aid and therefore a means to an end.
Once that end has been achieved I suspect that future e-cigarette conferences will be devoted to vaping cessation with speakers invited to address nicotine addiction, the need for further restrictions on all nicotine devices, and how Big Bad Tobacco is immorally making billions from the vaping 'epidemic'.
Anyway I'm sure the 9th E-Cigarette Summit will be a great success but for whom exactly is a moot point.
Reader Comments (2)
Quite a list of people addicted to the surgeon generals nicotine addiction theory for a living.
I suppose it would be unkind to point out, once again, that nicotine is not unique to tobacco.
Nor in anyway the most important thing in tobacco especially now.
They seem particulaly mystified as to why their beloved nicotine patches and vapes don't seem to work on Covid 19 when the nitric oxide from a burning cigarette seems to.
Weird, isn't it?
At a quick glance, all but two speakers (one with a medical background and one toxicologist) can at most only be described as social scientists, so not what the general public would regard as real experts in pertinent disciplines.
A sad reflection of the modern public health racket. It beggars belief that governments build public policy on such ill informed tittle-tattle.